


of all the vivid colors that we made

by amessofgaywords



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: F/F, and so apparently does anne, and there are not enough synonyms for gold, essentially six character studies, hints of parrlyn, i find the queen's colors very interesting, i had to google so many color synonyms for this, just so you know, synesthesia!anne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28029336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amessofgaywords/pseuds/amessofgaywords
Summary: Anne Boleyn is made up of colors. A lot of them. Colors are how she thinks, breathes, sees, hears, lives. Anne knew colors before she knew anything else, in this life and the one that came before. She knows colors like other people know their own minds, because Anne hasn’t always known her own mind. It’s the colors she comes back to in the end.or the story behind the queen's colors, told by a dedicated and adoring anne.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 57





	of all the vivid colors that we made

**Author's Note:**

> this idea came to me in my sleep. no, i will not elaborate.
> 
> title from coloring outside the lines by misterwives.

Anne Boleyn is made up of colors.

A lot of them. Colors are how she thinks, breathes, sees, hears, lives. Anne knew colors before she knew anything else, in this life and the one that came before. She knows colors like other people know their own minds, because Anne hasn’t always known her own mind. It’s the colors she comes back to in the end.

Anne Boleyn is a lot smarter than people tend to think. She likes it that way. She plays it off as a joke in the show, builds up her lovable chaotic gremlin personality until they stop paying attention to her stuffed full sketchbooks and reading lists of socio-political thrillers. _They_ being the audience, and _they_ being the queens a little bit too, sometimes.

Because Anne learned a long time ago that smart women get their heads chopped off by tyrannical, egotistical, self-righteous men who get a little too into games of bed, wed, behead. So Anne will leave the books and things to Cathy, who’s never quite been afraid of self-righteous men. And Anne will stick to her colors.

It’s no secret that Anne Boleyn likes art. Not to the techs at the theater who have to keep exasperatedly reminding her to cover up the marker doodles on her arms before shows, not to the queens who will find her random sketches scattered all around the house in odd places, not to the fans who compliment every one of her sketches on Twitter. And maybe Anne found the art, a way to calm her brain when even _she_ can’t understand her own thoughts, a way to get her feelings on paper without pesky _words_ getting in the way, but it’s more likely that the art found Anne. Because art is made of colors, and Anne is made of colors.

Calming shades of periwinkle blue. Obnoxiously loud lime. Gentle lilac. Boisterous, bright coquelicot. Musky, subtle viridian. Anne has never met a color that she hasn’t loved, in one way or another. Even sicky yellows and vomit greens have a certain _je ne sais qois_ charm to them, in their own way. If it were possible, Anne would adopt colors, but she settles for loving them instead.

It seems obvious to her, then, the way she associates colors with things. She knows not everyone does it. She knows her world is just a little more vibrant than other people’s. She learned that lesson hard five centuries ago, years of court etiquette imploring her to bite her tongue and use her words for things other than waxing poetic about the shade of the visiting diplomat’s voice or the unpleasant tint of her husband’s unwashed traveling cloak.

But this isn’t then, and she isn’t the Anne she used to be. And the colors aren’t the colors like they used to be either, and she’ll be damned if she lets a day go by without appreciating every single one of them.

\---

It might come as a surprise to know Anne was the one who did most of the costume design for the show. It certainly did to the queens when she bounded downstairs one day (in true Anne fashion), arms full of sketch paper listing detailed designs for each queen, their signature colors front and center. No one could say Anne didn’t have an eye for these things, and she could be downright _mean_ when scorned, so they went along with it. Only Catalina was reticent to admit the elegance and impressiveness of the final designs, though she did eventually cave and tell Anne she’d done good work.

Of course, the outfits themselves weren’t really anything Anne struggled with. Some Tudor elements here, sparkles there, ta da, you have a costume. No, it was the colors. It had taken her many Cathy-style sleepless nights, but in the end she realized it was as easy as breathing. Anne _knew_ colors better than anything else. She knew her fellow queens better than anything else, too. And when she really stepped back, unfocused her eyes and took in the whole picture, well, there’s nothing more obvious than what she came up with. 

\---

Catalina is gold. She is royalty and righteousness, in your face with her power. She shines under the stage lights, takes up a leader’s role when it’s vacant. She is a crown.

Anne has always liked the shade of Catalina’s voice, soft and commanding goldenrod. It demands respect but it does not hesitate to love. Sometimes, Anne thinks that Catalina’s gold deserves more than it gets. She takes care of them, after all. 

Catalina’s soft hands in Kitty’s hair when she’s stressed are honeycomb. Catalina’s song is flashy metallic confidence, but her story is bitter mustard, Anne has learned from too many sleepless nights. She was there, after all, an unmistakable catalyst. She knows the butterscotch feeling of Catalina’s indignation as Henry brushed her aside again and again. She remembers the gilded smiles.

Catalina is a master at brushing her own emotions aside. Anne thinks that gold might be the coldest color, colder than blue, colder than white. Catalina’s gold is reserved, dangerous when provoked. Catalina is metallic, cool to the touch.

But gold cares, it absorbs. Khaki holds your hand when you feel the panic attack coming. Dijon is the anger at anyone who may come after you. Tuscan sun is a grin and a cheer when you publish your first piece of writing or win a songwriting competition. Canary is soft nights in the summer reminiscing about the good old days that weren’t so good at all, but it’s nice to laugh over white wine anyway.

Catalina is gold, and Anne likes gold. She doesn’t know if gold likes her quite as much, but she appreciates that. She can live with it.

\---

Anne herself is green. She likes the complexity of its shades, the depth of forest and the jovial quality of lime. Green can be many things both good and bad, and Anne has never really been able to pin herself down, either, and this is why green speaks to her. Soft, playful, loud, bright, it can be anything. So many shades and so many sides, deeper on many levels than anyone would realize. An apt description for Anne herself, if she’s going to get into it.

To many people, green is the color of jealousy, and Anne supposes that makes sense. What is jealousy if not a necklace ripped from another woman’s neck, the pursuing of a man already wed whom your sister sleeps with on occasion; yes, if you don’t really think about it at all, jealousy plays as large a part in Anne’s story as a swordsman’s blade.

But Anne knows the truth. She knows the rotten seaweed of her father’s heavy gaze, knows the emerald of the dress he gives her so that she might impress the king. She knows the shamrock sound of wedding bells, lucky her, the second wife, the witch. She knows the bitter mint of not getting to make the choice.

It took a lot of unlearning to love green again; after all, Anne’s green sleeves have become legend just like the rest of her, and reputation can warp a person into something unrecognizable. But Anne could never stay away from any color for long. 

Over time, she learns to appreciate it again. The soft, gentle seafoam of the morning air in the back garden. Harlequin pranks played with Anna, running into corners to avoid Jane catching them and hiding chartreuse giggles behind her hand. Olive and jade flashing in the pop rock music she likes best, pine in her cheeky smile and the juniper sound of her voice when she sings. Even the mossy, gray-green feel of the mottled skin of her scar under fingers has its charms, her pain rooted in something that still feels wholly her.

It took Anne a while to love green again, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

\---

Jane is grey. Some people think grey isn’t a color. Anne doesn’t think that’s quite it. Grey is soft, kind, gentle hands combing through your hair in the mornings and the smoke smell of earl grey tea late at night when you can’t sleep. Grey is the love of someone loyal. But grey doesn’t often stand alone. It’s the shade of a color, never quite a color itself. It rarely gets its moment in the spotlight without being washed out.

Anne used to think Jane liked it that way. Silver smiles when yet another interviewer skipped over her in the lineup. Shadow whispers when she spoke of her son, caring even though she knew _exactly_ what his birth meant to Henry, what she _hadn’t_ meant to him. Charcoal regret, steel eyes, and Anne started to learn that Jane lost like the rest of them.

Grey is the hidden sadness behind a guise of softness. It’s a mink insomnia, feigning dirty dishes or paperwork as a reason for the dark circles under her eyes. Grey is shallow on the surface, the distinct gravel of putting others first.

When Anne paints, grey is the color that absorbs. It sucks in the light of the other colors, carries their weight so the brightest parts of them can shine. It’s the part that the eyes skip over, shades of iron and abalone and ash passed for the brilliant reds and greens. Grey is the middle, not quite the worst, the forgotten.

There was a period of time when Anne might have said Jane deserved it. She might have laughed in spite, called her sad, grey smiles karma. But reincarnation changes a person, and Anne understands things more now than she did then.

Now, when Anne sees a look of pewter pass over Jane’s face, she finds her hand and gives it a squeeze.

\---

Anna is red. It seems obvious from the outset. Anna is all scarlet righteousness, burning crimson and smooth wine. She gets the most numbers written on napkins whenever they go out. She’s fiercely protective. She speaks in persuasive ruby and currant.

Anne thinks Anna’s red is one of her favorites. Bloodred determination when she sets her mind to something, salmon when she’s vulnerable and the mahogany of her tired sighs after a two-show day. Anna is candy red playful sometimes, and burgundy when she’s scheming.

Like the rest of them, her story is a highlight of broken hibiscus dreams and the garnet feeling of fate setting in. Henry leaves a cabernet stain on Anna no matter how much she denies it, no matter what she got out of their deal. Anne sees it in her eyes when they talk. She sees it in the way she second guesses every outfit, every haircut, every lipstick tube in Lush.

Red is overpowering, in the best and worst ways. It takes care of you, wraps you in its imperial arms and carries you to bed when you’re tired. It can also be bitter, dry sangria humor that scathes more than it heals. It can hide things, even from itself. Red doesn’t always know how to be weak.

But every so often, it softens into coral and copper and carmine. It lets you in and drowns you in pigment, lets you feel every part of it if you’re worthy enough. Anne is lucky to be worthy. All of the queens are.

Anna is rough around the edges. She colors herself in brick and builds herself walls. It makes it easier, except when it doesn’t, when the fleshy maroon feelings come back in, and then her family will be there for her. Because there’s really no getting rid of them.

\---

Kitty is pink. It _is_ her favorite color, so that’s nice, but also a bit subjective. In all honesty, Kitty was pink before Kitty knew what pink _was._

Pink is a lot of things, in Anne’s eyes. It can be gentle rose and bubblegum sweet, like Kitty’s laugh, her secretive smiles, the streaks in her hair. Carnation and lavender and amaranth in her soft love for strawberry cupcakes and hot chocolate. It can also be loud, bright. There’s the powerful magenta of her voice, the electric fuchsia of her energy onstage.

Then, of course, there is the extra dimension. The bitter thulian of biting her tongue, the watermelon taste of crying herself to sleep, her skin stretching uncomfortably over her bones, feeling too old and too young all at once. The tough taffy of fighting back, of being afraid.

A girl who’s gone through what Kitty’s gone through should be broken, Anne thinks. She should not be soft, innocent, playful and sweet. Kitty’s smiles shouldn’t be fandango after all the men, all the years. 

It hurts Anne that she couldn’t have been there for her. She loves her cousin with everything she has, and it’s a rouge regret that Kitty’s suffering couldn’t have been stopped. They all regret it, in a way, for they all had a hand in it. But Kitty never holds it against them.

Sure, she has cerise days where she hides in bed eating ice cream and watching televised figure skating competitions. She has her raspberry moods and her outbursts. But she also has the French rose feeling of Anne’s hand in hers when it gets too hard, the strawberry taste of the love of the queens. She has the flamingo relief of living in a world where everyone is not out to get her. And she makes the most of it. That Anne knows. 

\---

Cathy is blue. And if Anne is being honest (and forgetting her fairly passionate dedication to green), blue might be her favorite.

Cathy is a lot of different blues. A casual observer might call her navy, deep and dark and knowledgeable. Her indigo beautiful brain is the hardest working Anne’s ever seen, cobalt thoughts flying by at the speed of light. Cathy’s random lists of facts are rich azure, her crammed full bookshelves are denim.

The other queens might call Cathy something softer, cornflower, perhaps. After all, they see her in the early morning, baby blue sleep just eking out of her eyes, yawning in tiffany while she reaches for her coffee. They know her quiet Carolina moods, the powder blue way she gets when she’s sad. They see the messy, sky blue sides of her.

Anne, well. Anne would like to think she knows better. She knows the cerulean way Cathy can rant about the historical implications of certain French literary translations, the aqua way she laughs at Jane’s bad jokes. She knows the cyan of her most shiny smiles, the kind she gets when she finds a cool piece of information or finishes a draft. She knows Cathy is bright, teal and turquoise in all the best ways.

Cathy can be timid. Shy, withdrawn, blizzard light. She can also be deep, Prussian in her eloquent words and royal blue manners. But Anne’s favorite part of Cathy is the bright, sapphire part, that sings way too loudly to musical theatre and dances around the living room. The lapis part that can come up with a witty joke for any situation. The part that is light and dark combined, the perfect Aegean combination.

Anne also likes the way blue and green look side by side. But that’s neither here nor there.

\---

Slowly but surely, the colors become a part of them. Catalina wears gold bracelets whenever they go out, Jane starts knitting light grey sweaters and scarves, Cathy’s favorite mug becomes the navy one with the chip on the rim. Subliminally, they live up to Anne’s estimations, and it’s not like she would say anything about it, but she is pretty proud of herself.

No one has noticed what the colors mean, not to Anne’s knowledge at least. It’s their costumes, it becomes their brand, and that’s that. She fills sketchbooks of portraits in their colors, using every shade of canary and jade and pewter and wine and watermelon she can find. She has one, just for Cathy, that reminds her a bit of Picasso’s blue phase.

She wonders if they know when she gives them matching paintings for Christmas. She wonders if they realize when they all start using color coded mugs. She wonders if, maybe, this is their way of telling her they don’t mind. That perhaps, of all the ways it could have happened, they have found a family together.

One thing is for certain: if someone needs help with an outfit they know to come to Anne. And somehow, mysteriously, the colors seem a little brighter whenever the queens are involved.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me @amessofgaywords on twitter.


End file.
